Writing about making a film — that was the task, evidently also somewhat internal. Perhaps in this case, the old paradox that writing about life disturbs the experience of living doesn't matter. Because directing a film is not my ontological condition — it's a function of y and y, an unknown story I want to tell.
Yes, just like that. I got to know my film in the editing suite, or in its archipelago — a preferred name, personally — observing the web of relationships the film and its editing weave. I got to know it by doing it, just as one only truly knows a painting or certain kinds of text by making it.

But it’s not that there was a finished film waiting to be discovered. It’s not like I’m a sculptor removing the excess until what was always there is revealed. In the case of an ethnographic film like mine, discovering what it’s about is what you do by going body-to-body with the material. I give, it approaches and gives back. I capture, advance, it recedes. I retreat too, and a space grows between us. I go to sleep curled up in fetal position, I dream, and return to the clash: I move forward, it yields, I’m unsure what to do with what I’ve received. I take a chance, step forward, it steps back twice — and we find a rhythm. Until the belt slips, feet are stepped on, and well... da capo.

A strange metaphor to say that not everything we think, plan, agree upon, frame, and record comes across well on screen. I don’t know why that is. It just is. Have you ever tried photographing the moon with your phone? (Lesson #1.) Of course, a cinematographer would know better — but I, director-producer-researcher-camera-assistant-driver, did not.

And since making a film is a long and costly endeavor — even low-budget or ultra-low-budget or, as I came to learn (Lesson #2), no-budget films like mine — I thought: since I hadn’t imagined telling this story in writing, better to use the film, this long and costly endeavor, to produce experience, not just information. Since I’m dealing with a thorny political issue, it’s worth saying too: it’s better to direct a film that promotes a kind of immersion that’s not just rational into what it’s talking about (Lesson #3). It’s an attempt, always is.

So then:
Lesson #1 + Lesson #2 + Lesson #3 = y: a complex equation — especially if y, the film to be made, isn’t about the hardships of making cinema with no money. And obviously, that wasn’t the film I was inspired to create.

The way I found to unveil a bit of y was to open up one of the components of this equation, face the material, take ownership of past decisions to choose future ones.

Lesson #2 is sadly just that, especially for certain types of films: It’s the market, stupid! (to paraphrase Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign slogan). Many things shape it into what it is, but talking about that now would be like playing David against Goliath — even if it must be voiced, over and over — talking about films that propose another pace and relationship with the image. Where the “other” only exists in relation to the so-called “other” of the other.

As for the makeup of Lesson #1, that’s something I can begin to unravel in this text: dark shots captured because the scene could never be repeated, and it's central to the narrative (is it?); awkward angles chosen so as not to miss honest dialogue; characters whose charm doesn’t strike right away because the film wants an encounter with life as it is — not the hero’s journey. But remember when I said that not everything we think, plan, agree on, frame and record comes out well on screen? Sometimes, without any planning, we get great shots. Sometimes, with planning, too. They work! So well, in fact, they don’t match the rest. They take the film somewhere else — but can’t hold it there. So sometimes, within Lesson #2, it’s necessary to reveal a component in negative.

And so enters Lesson #3, which is almost entirely made of questions: For the experience of the image to emerge, does this shot really need to stay? What is central to the narrative — this one that understands form needs content to manifest? One image led to another and another, and before I knew it, entire sequences of the film came together. How does that hold up in the balance of the rest of the film? If we remove this entire story, are we still honoring the characters? Sacrificing a part so that others may live.

Given a certain budget, making a film (y) is, therefore, solving the questions of Lesson #3 with the material collected in Lesson #1.
Put another way: making a film is about crafting the best questions you can for the material you have — an experience of encounter.
Put another way still: making a film is not about asking disengaged questions of even the highest quality material — that would be an immoral experience.